Major Works
by Calhoun

 
Habermas and the Public Sphere



About this title:
In this book, scholars from a wide range of disciplines respond to Habermas's most directly relevant work, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere.

 

Understanding Sociology
by Craig Calhoun, Donald Light and Suzanne Keller



About this title:
The authors have tried to make this a book students will want to read as well as a book from which they will learn about the best of contemporary and classical sociology.... The concepts of functional integration, power, social action, social structure, and culture are presented as major tools of sociological work.--Pref.
 


Classical Sociological Theory
By Craig Calhoun, Joseph Gerteis, and James Moody (editors)


Critical Social Theory


Contemporary Sociological Theory
By Craig Calhoun, Joseph Gerteis, and James Moody (editors)


Understanding September 11
by Craig Calhoun, Ashley Timmer and Paul Price (editors)



About this title:
When terrorists flew jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the social effects were as dramatic as the visual images. Individual lives, families, friendship networks, corporations, global financial flows, and politics were all transformed. Moving behind headlines, first impressions, political speeches, and soundbites, knowledge from the social sciences is a basic resource for understanding these changes—and also what has not changed. The social sciences fill in necessary background, provide contexts for interpretation, and offer vital analytic perspectives. They help us see deep roots to some parts of the current crisis and also the influence of social change. They show how religious and cultural factors intertwine with economic and security concerns. They help us make sense of the role of Islam, the impact on international relations, and the challenges for democratic societies. Understanding September 11 is written by many of today's foremost anthropologists, economists, historians, political scientists, and sociologists; by specialists on Islam, war, terrorism, and Central Asia. It offers the most complete account available, not just of terror and tragedy but of the challenges we face now and the issues we must understand to make informed choices about our future.
 


Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives
By Craig Calhoun, Moishe Postone, and Edward Lipuma (editors)



About this title:
Long a dominant figure in the French human sciences, Pierre Bourdieu has become internationally influential in the fields of sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies. A major figure in the development of "practice" as an organizing concept in social research, Bourdieu has emerged as the foremost advocate of reflexive social science; his work combines an astonishing range of empirical work with highly sophisticated theory. American reception of his works, however, has lacked a full understanding of their place within the broad context of French human science. His individual works separated by distinct boundaries between social science fields in American academia, Bourdieu's cohesive thought has come to this country in fragments. "Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives" provides a unified and balanced appraisal of Bourdieu's varied works by both proponents and skeptics. The essays are written from the varied viewpoints of cultural anthropology, ethnomethodology and other varieties of sociology, existential and Wittgensteinian philosophies, linguistics, media studies, and feminism. They work around three main themes: Bourdieu's effort to transcend gaps between practical knowledge and universal structures, his central concept of "reflexivity, " and the relations between social structure, systems of classification, and language. Ultimately, the contributors raise a variety of crucial theoretical questions and address problems that are important not only to understanding Bourdieu but to advancing empirical work of the kind he has pioneered. In an essay written especially for this volume, Bourdieu describes his own "mode of intellectual production" and the reasons he sees for its common misunderstanding. The contributors are Hubert Dreyfus, Paul Rabinow, Charles Taylor, Aaron Cicourel, James Collins, William Hanks, Beate Krais, Nicholas Garnham, Scott Lash, Roger Brubaker, and Loic Wacquant, and the editors.
 


Nationalism



About this title:

Nationalism is one of the most pressing of global problems. Drawing on examples from around the world, Craig Calhoun considers nationalism's diverse manifestations, its history, and its relationship to imperialism and colonialism. He also challenges attempts to "debunk" nationalism that fail to grasp why it still has such power and centrality in modern life.
 


Social Theory and the Politics of Identity


About this title:
The new social movements of the post-war era have brought to prominence the idea that identity can be a crucial focus for political struggle. The civil rights movement, anti-colonial movements in the Third World, the women's movement, the gay movement - all have sought the affirmation of excluded identities as publicly good and politically salient. The rise of identity politics is also linked to an increasing recognition that social theory itself must be a discourse with many voices. An increasingly transnational sphere of public and academic discourse - and increasing roles for women, gay men and lesbians, people of color, and various previously excluded groups - impels all social theorists not only to make sense of differences in the "world-out-there," but to make sense of differences within the discourse of theory. This collective volume is the product of that conviction.
 


Neither Gods Nor Emperors: Students Struggle for Democracy



About this title:

Sociologist Craig Calhoun who witnessed the monumental event of which he writes offers a vivid, carefully crafted analysis of the Chinese student uprising in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in the spring of 1989. Calhoun takes an inside look at the student movement, its complex leadership, its eventual suppression, and its continuing legacy.
 


Dictionary of the Social Sciences
by Craig Calhoun (editor)



About this title: Featuring 1,500 concise definitions of key terms, this authoritative, single-volume dictionary of the social sciences covers the vocabularies of anthropology, sociology, political science, economics, human geography, cultural studies, and Marxism in an integrated, easy-to-use, A-to-Z reference tool.
 


Hannah Arendt and the Meaning of Politics
by Craig Calhoun, John McGowan (editors)



About this title: Is politics really nothing more than power relations, competing interests and claims for recognition, conflicting assertions of "simple" truths? No thinker has argued more passionately against this narrow view than Hannah Arendt, and no one has more to say to those who bring questions of meaning, identity, value, and transcendence to our impoverished public life. This volume brings leading figures in philosophy, political theory, intellectual history, and literary theory into a dialogue about Arendt's work and its significance for today's fractious identity politics, public ethics, and civic life. For each essay -- on the fate of politics in a postmodern, post-Marxist era; on the connection of nonfoundationalist ethics and epistemology to democracy; on the conditions conducive to a vital public sphere; on the recalcitrant problems of violence and evil -- the volume includes extended responses, and a concluding essay by Martin Jay responding to all the others. Ranging from feminism to aesthetics to the discourse of democracy, the essays explore how an encounter with Arendt reconfigures, disrupts, and revitalizes what passes for public debate in our day. Together they forcefully demonstrate the power of Arendt's work as a splendid provocation and a living resource.

 



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